It’s a good read. Not to be cynical, but I learned long ago that Eisenhower was correct. You can actually go even further back to Smedley Butler. War is a business. Peace is bad for business. They don’t hate Hegseth for any other reason than he is cleaning out the weakness from the top down. Fighting for this country might actually mean something again one day. Actual mission accomplishment instead offering the American fighting man up as sacrifice for the corrupt machine. On Sat, Nov 15, 2025 at 1:05 PM<mgbrattland@gerlecreek.com> wrote:
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/11/15/win_our_wars_1147660.ht...
Good read _______________________________________________ Helobubbas mailing list -- helobubbas@helobubbas.com To unsubscribe send an email to helobubbas-leave@helobubbas.com
So many people bought into the negative propaganda on Hegseth. They call him a drunk and other things. Pretty easy to spot who the establishment people are who feel threatened. And they should. So far what I have observed is he is on point and doing what I really think is long overdo. We have such a top heavy unwieldy and expensive operation running, our metal meets the meat needs to be the focus, not how many consulting firms we have under contract. First time I left gov contract work for a truly private sector job it was like I took a good bath. I felt clean. Do some of those provide important services to the DOW.. yea but I suspect we could do just fine without them. I would rather see a lot of the upper fluff gone and those resources invested in revitalizing our reserves and our logistics capabilities. On 11/15/2025 1:50 PM, randall abshier wrote:
Brian, totally agree with you. I retired in ‘99 and became a gov’t contractor till ‘16. During this time, I briefed a lot of Flags/Senior Civilians on various training issues within their areas of responsibilities and each year I saw more concerns about politically correctness/woke/gender issues than warfare readiness and winning. Flags/Senior Civilians getting ahead on “soft” issues/politically correct lock steps and not “winning the war”. I saw the average weight of our Sailors, Officers/Enlisted, go up and standards go down. When Trump/Hegseth came in I said; Flags/Senior Civilians aren’t going to be happy, many will leave voluntarily, more will be fired (not enough), but some Senior Civilians/Flags will still be around and complain anomalously. If they don’t like what is happening then why don’t they just leave! As a CO of several Commands I learned early, you aren’t going to make everyone happy but do what is right and expected of you to make your Command the most warfare ready and take the heat from a few, usually anomalous . Listen to your JOs/Enlisted folks, they usually have great inputs-they are in the trenches. I get a kick when anomalous Senior Civilians/Flags say Hegseth has a junior officer mentality. Well it is our junior Officers/Enlisted that fight the battles and win. They know what it takes. Sent from my iPad
On Nov 15, 2025, at 12:09, Brian Miller <brianjmiller1977@gmail.com> wrote:
It’s a good read. Not to be cynical, but I learned long ago that Eisenhower was correct. You can actually go even further back to Smedley Butler. War is a business. Peace is bad for business. They don’t hate Hegseth for any other reason than he is cleaning out the weakness from the top down. Fighting for this country might actually mean something again one day. Actual mission accomplishment instead offering the American fighting man up as sacrifice for the corrupt machine.
On Sat, Nov 15, 2025 at 1:05 PM<mgbrattland@gerlecreek.com> wrote:
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/11/15/win_our_wars_1147660.ht...
Good read
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I value the knowledge of this group and I appreciate the insights from Lou and Randall. I’m not a guy that pretends to be an expert on anything, but I watched the towers fall as an ensign in the ready room at the HTs. Obviously it was a very emotional time, but I remember most of us feeling disappointed that we were going to miss stomping out the folks responsible. Little did I know that the war wouldn’t end until a year after I retired in a completely disastrous military embarrassment and it didn’t matter to anybody. What mattered is that there weren’t so many straight while males (sorry, but that’s what it was about) rising up through the ranks. To be fair, I would say it was less about DEI, and clearly far more about the folks who worshipped “the system” over the political will of the country and the Constitution. No administration should have to endure generals making policy at their level to protect a self-licking system that swallowed them up several promotions ago. That doesn’t mean we fill the Pentagon full of hinge knecks either. It does mean that we deserve accountability for the lobbyists, activists, and other frauds playing dress up as senior military leadership. On Sat, Nov 15, 2025 at 4:50 PM randall abshier <abshierr@cox.net> wrote:
Brian, totally agree with you. I retired in ‘99 and became a gov’t contractor till ‘16. During this time, I briefed a lot of Flags/Senior Civilians on various training issues within their areas of responsibilities and each year I saw more concerns about politically correctness/woke/gender issues than warfare readiness and winning. Flags/Senior Civilians getting ahead on “soft” issues/politically correct lock steps and not “winning the war”. I saw the average weight of our Sailors, Officers/Enlisted, go up and standards go down. When Trump/Hegseth came in I said; Flags/Senior Civilians aren’t going to be happy, many will leave voluntarily, more will be fired (not enough), but some Senior Civilians/Flags will still be around and complain anomalously. If they don’t like what is happening then why don’t they just leave! As a CO of several Commands I learned early, you aren’t going to make everyone happy but do what is right and expected of you to make your Command the most warfare ready and take the heat from a few, usually anomalous . Listen to your JOs/Enlisted folks, they usually have great inputs-they are in the trenches. I get a kick when anomalous Senior Civilians/Flags say Hegseth has a junior officer mentality. Well it is our junior Officers/Enlisted that fight the battles and win. They know what it takes. Sent from my iPad
On Nov 15, 2025, at 12:09, Brian Miller <brianjmiller1977@gmail.com> wrote:
It’s a good read. Not to be cynical, but I learned long ago that Eisenhower was correct. You can actually go even further back to Smedley Butler. War is a business. Peace is bad for business. They don’t hate Hegseth for any other reason than he is cleaning out the weakness from the top down. Fighting for this country might actually mean something again one day. Actual mission accomplishment instead offering the American fighting man up as sacrifice for the corrupt machine.
On Sat, Nov 15, 2025 at 1:05 PM<mgbrattland@gerlecreek.com> wrote:
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/11/15/win_our_wars_1147660.ht...
Good read _______________________________________________ Helobubbas mailing list -- helobubbas@helobubbas.com To unsubscribe send an email to helobubbas-leave@helobubbas.com
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Exceptionally well said. On Sunday, November 16, 2025 at 05:42:18 AM PST, Brian Miller <brianjmiller1977@gmail.com> wrote: I value the knowledge of this group and I appreciate the insights from Lou and Randall. I’m not a guy that pretends to be an expert on anything, but I watched the towers fall as an ensign in the ready room at the HTs. Obviously it was a very emotional time, but I remember most of us feeling disappointed that we were going to miss stomping out the folks responsible. Little did I know that the war wouldn’t end until a year after I retired in a completely disastrous military embarrassment and it didn’t matter to anybody. What mattered is that there weren’t so many straight while males (sorry, but that’s what it was about) rising up through the ranks. To be fair, I would say it was less about DEI, and clearly far more about the folks who worshipped “the system” over the political will of the country and the Constitution. No administration should have to endure generals making policy at their level to protect a self-licking system that swallowed them up several promotions ago. That doesn’t mean we fill the Pentagon full of hinge knecks either. It does mean that we deserve accountability for the lobbyists, activists, and other frauds playing dress up as senior military leadership. On Sat, Nov 15, 2025 at 4:50 PM randall abshier <abshierr@cox.net> wrote: Brian, totally agree with you. I retired in ‘99 and became a gov’t contractor till ‘16. During this time, I briefed a lot of Flags/Senior Civilians on various training issues within their areas of responsibilities and each year I saw more concerns about politically correctness/woke/gender issues than warfare readiness and winning. Flags/Senior Civilians getting ahead on “soft” issues/politically correct lock steps and not “winning the war”. I saw the average weight of our Sailors, Officers/Enlisted, go up and standards go down. When Trump/Hegseth came in I said; Flags/Senior Civilians aren’t going to be happy, many will leave voluntarily, more will be fired (not enough), but some Senior Civilians/Flags will still be around and complain anomalously. If they don’t like what is happening then why don’t they just leave! As a CO of several Commands I learned early, you aren’t going to make everyone happy but do what is right and expected of you to make your Command the most warfare ready and take the heat from a few, usually anomalous . Listen to your JOs/Enlisted folks, they usually have great inputs-they are in the trenches. I get a kick when anomalous Senior Civilians/Flags say Hegseth has a junior officer mentality. Well it is our junior Officers/Enlisted that fight the battles and win. They know what it takes. Sent from my iPad On Nov 15, 2025, at 12:09, Brian Miller <brianjmiller1977@gmail.com> wrote: It’s a good read. Not to be cynical, but I learned long ago that Eisenhower was correct. You can actually go even further back to Smedley Butler. War is a business. Peace is bad for business. They don’t hate Hegseth for any other reason than he is cleaning out the weakness from the top down. Fighting for this country might actually mean something again one day. Actual mission accomplishment instead offering the American fighting man up as sacrifice for the corrupt machine. On Sat, Nov 15, 2025 at 1:05 PM<mgbrattland@gerlecreek.com> wrote: https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/11/15/win_our_wars_1147660.ht... Good read _______________________________________________ Helobubbas mailing list -- helobubbas@helobubbas.com To unsubscribe send an email to helobubbas-leave@helobubbas.com _______________________________________________ Helobubbas mailing list -- helobubbas@helobubbas.com To unsubscribe send an email to helobubbas-leave@helobubbas.com _______________________________________________ Helobubbas mailing list -- helobubbas@helobubbas.com To unsubscribe send an email to helobubbas-leave@helobubbas.com
participants (5)
-
Brian Miller -
d.c.wynne -
Kevin Black -
mgbrattland＠gerlecreek.com -
randall abshier